All very good questions which I pondered a lot myself at around this time last year when purchasing my own HMS example.
The date letter changed on 29th of May at the London assay office. Every badge I’ve ever seen has the leopard assay mark for London.
Very few silver Lonsdale badges are assay marked ‘u’ for 1915, believe I’ve only ever seen two v’s dozens with the 1914 ‘t’.
The online Cumbrian archives are an excellent free resource for the cited texts, found here:
https://cumbria.gov.uk/elibrary/Cont...4229216421.PDF
8th December 1914 - letter from Lord Lonsdale ‘‘I will send you a sketch of the badge which is almost complete. How many badges do they require, one for cap 2 for shoulder, where else?’’
(a man with deep pockets!)
I interpreted this as the design sketch had not yet been completed. But alternatively it may mean the the sample badge was almost completed?
12th December 1914 - strength listed as: 19 officers, 1088 other ranks, 15 paid instructors.
11th January 1915 - Machell’s 600 ‘badges’ & 1,000 ‘thanks badges’ letter.
16th January 1915 - Garrard’s 650 badges forwarded letter.
As you point out numbers bounded about are a tad confusing and ambiguous - 600, 1,000 and 650.
Personally I don’t believe all of those can be the silver Lonsdale badge for 4 reasons: (1) it’s over double the Battalion strength, (2) six weeks doesn’t seem enough time to make, assay and deliver 2,450 silver badges, (3) reference to 1,000 as ‘thanks badges’ v’s 600 as ‘badges’ suggests a difference and (4) would any more be needed later to get the date letter ‘u’ in June?
The 600 and the 650 being silver badges is a more likely scenario I think. Even then that brings the total to 1,250 badges with a Bn strength of 1,107 officers and men. Seems plausible.
Producing, assaying and delivering these 1,250 silver badges between 8th Dec - 17th Jan. A tall order but also possible I think.
I’m very curious as to what a ‘thanks badge’ is or may be in this context. When I Googled this term the results I got appeared to be linked with Scouts and scouting which seem unlikely to be what Machell was referring to.
As to the officers collars and suggestion of an extra 100 badges, this is interesting for a couple reasons.
Firstly all the pictures I can find show officers wearing standard Border Regiment OSD collars.
Second, interestingly silver Lonsdales are found with two different original fixing arrangements: loop & tongue or sometimes 2 E-W loops.
Thirdly 100 silver (collar) badges for 19 officers seems a tad excessive! But then Lord Lonsdale isn’t short of a bob or two.
Notwithstanding it would seem that if this 100 was approved there then must have been a subsequent order of silver badges even later in the year for the ‘u’ mark to exist.
I’ve been told that after being issued it was not uncommon for the silver badges to go missing. Perhaps unsurprising given their value and the economic situation of many of the men and their families. So were replacements badges partly the cause of a future order?
Your last sentence about Lord Lonsdale providing a silver badge to every member as a personal gift and it being the first issue badge is Pals lore and referred to in several books.
The GM badges made by Gaunt are similarly universally accepted as being of later issue. When is unclear. I’m certain sure I’ve seen a 1917 dated photo with the GM badge worn.
I’m of the opinion there were at least two batches of GM badge due to differences in voiding and variations in Gaunt plaque positions and type. One is voided between the Griffon’s neck and tail, these invariably have a rectangular plate attached at the cross-over point of the scrolls. The other is solid in respect of the former and has either a rectangular or lozenge shaped plaque behind the beast’s body. Both types are from the same die.